A weekend without immediate commitments saw me down to the boat on Saturday with tools, and bits and bobs to get ready for a trial solo sail on the Sunday.

First things first, while the weather looked dry, was to fit the remaining two winches at the front end of the cockpit to deal with furling lines and the staysail sheet when in action. Simple, job done. cockpit now equipped with 6 winches that all take the same winch handle!

Weather still OK, though a bit breezy, saw me preparing to go up the mast to fit the blocks for lazy jacks. Lazy jack lines, and a bucket of tools hoisted up to the second spreaders on the staysail halyard. Me, hoisted self up on spinnaker halyard. Blocks fitted to underside of spreaders, lines were passed the correct (wrong!) sides of the shrouds, when the first problem became apparent. The bag of tools was cleated off at the deck. The lines which were attached to it, were now attached to the mast, and it looked like it had no method of retrieval once I was back on deck.

I took my chances with the bag of tools being heavy enough to descend under its own weight once I was deck based again, and I lowered myself off. On deck two things rapidly made themselves clear. 1. The bag was not coming down by itself, and 2. The lazyjack lines were entirely where they shouldn't be with respect to the shrouds. Up mast again to sort out. Down again for a cup of tea and a biscuit. More playing with lines until the lazyjacks looked right on the boom. Hoisted main to check lazyjacks and reefing lines. Looks good, main down.

The weather then remembered that it was an English summer and began to rain. I retreated below and did some fishing touches to the chart table.

Over dinner, ambitious plans were made to sail to the Colne for lunch, and back in the afternoon. This would necessitate a dawn departure to get the ebb out of the Orwell, the flood up to the Colne, a quick lunch at anchor and then a dash back up the Wallet with the ebb, and on the mooring by 8pm. The forecast was even looking like it would help with SE 4-5 veering later.

Sunday. 06:00. Windy, halyards thumping the mast. Rolled over and went back to sleep. 0800, up quick cup of tea and breakfast. Engine on for security, main up with one reef, mooring slipped. Slipping out nicely into the channel, headsail unfurled and we’re away. Engine off, unused. Smile and a grin.

With the flood now running and a southerly a beat down to Harwich was in order, and with almost no one about it was a good opportunity to try short taking short handed. No problems.

Out into Harwich, only to see the Naze disappear, followed by Languard as the rain drove in. Bloody weather! Persevered out to sea and around Deane and then Languard and then back for the Stour in developing sunshine. Might be nice after all. Dropped the hook under sail opposite Erwarten Ness and had some lunch. Finished the trim on the ice box, measured up for a sun/rain awning, and then with a slack tide set the main, hauled up the anchor and turned down stream, headsail out again, and off for the Orwell and home.

Far too nice to stop at the mooring so continued up to the bridge playing dodge with a Thames barge under power. I over took him while on the making tack, he overtook me as I crossed the river again. Wind just enough to put the gunnels under on occasion. Back down the river late in the day to pick up the mooring, engine on for comfort and to extract me from a stall with just the main up, and then round again to get the mooring.

Sail over, Sunday over, weekend finished and a damn good sail.